An electric-powered vehicle is mounted with a power storage device (such as secondary battery or capacitor for example) and travels by using driving force generated from electric power stored in the power storage device. The electric-powered vehicle includes, for example, electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles and fuel-cell vehicles.
In recent years, techniques have been proposed for charging a power storage device mounted on such electric-powered vehicles by a commercial power supply having a high power generation efficiency. As one example, a technique has been proposed for charging a power storage device mounted on plug-in electric-powered vehicles (PEVs) by a commercial power supply providing electric power to charging stations (e.g., a power source of a relatively low voltage such as 100 V or 200 V). When a power storage device mounted on a PEV is charged, a plug of a charge cable may be connected to a connector provided to the vehicle. This charge cable may be used to transfer power from the commercial power supply to the power storage device of the PEV. However, these charging operations often require complicated inter-operating systems between the PEV and the charging stations for payment.